"Owlish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mysterious ways to perform its wonders. If any doubt were left by all this paraphernalia of marvel, it would be dispelled from the average mind when it came in contact with the chief conjuror, who is seated in the dim seclusion of a retired room, fortified by bell-pulls, speaking-tubes, and an owlish expression intended to be considered as the mirror of taciturn wisdom. From his retreat he moves the outside puppets of secretary, shadows, and call-boys, as the requirements of his patrons, who are admitted singly to his presence, may demand. It is he whose ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... senoritas, the music of the weird Spanish minstrels, and the strange piquant Mexican dishes served at a hundred competing tables, crowds thronged the Alamo Plaza all night. Travellers, rancheros, family parties, gay gasconading rounders, sightseers and prowlers of polyglot, owlish San Antone mingled there at the centre of the city's fun and frolic. The popping of corks, pistols, and questions; the glitter of eyes, jewels and daggers; the ring of laughter and coin—these were the ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... repeated the expression of his gratitude as though he meant it, declaring his own hands would be thus strengthened for the maintenance of discipline. But I have yet to learn of any gratitude on the part of Tamasese. Consider the case of the poor owlish man hearing for the first time our diplomatic commonplaces. The admiral would not be answerable for the consequences. Think of it! A devil of a position for a de facto king. And here, the same afternoon, was Leary in the Scanlon house, mopping it out for unknown designs by the hands ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... him, at the lean figure sunk in the armchair, at the dragged, infirm face, the blurred, owlish eyes, the expression of abject self-pity, of ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair
... tried to make others feel it. I kept turning my head, but could see no one who seemed to be taking an undue interest in me. Presently, however, I caught Tony's eyes, which fixed themselves on mine in an owlish stare. ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Robert threw up his arm. There was a crash of glass, and Bassett, with his legs apart and the water streaming down his face, stood regarding him with owlish consternation. His idea that the junior partner was suffering from a species of fit was confirmed by the latter suddenly snatching his hat from its peg and ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... Opperdyke, whose big-rimmed spectacles, high forehead, and bushy hair gave him an intensely owlish appearance, sighed tremendously, stared solemnly at his class-mates, and became the author of a most astounding statement: "I—I can't study," quavered the "boner," he whose tender devotion to his books was a ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... and another dense throng will emerge from the Old Bowery Theatre, just over the way. It will be a very mixed crowd of men, women, and children,—the street-boys, with their wondrous variety of sharp faces, owlish faces, wicked faces, and ragged clothes, being constant patrons of this popular east-side theatre. Not far from this are the most dangerous corners and lurking-places to be found anywhere in the Bowery. Here thieves and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... His nose was large and thick with a bulbous end, and inclined to a reddish purple, a tint which extended to the adjacent parts of his face as if the colour had run. His eyebrows were large and beetling, overhanging deep-set eyes, and he wore a pair of spectacles which gave him a somewhat owlish expression. His exterior was unprepossessing, and I was in a state of mind that rendered me easily ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... But the owlish dignity of his age would not let him drop the subject without further explanation. "It's all right for yore dad to much you. I reckon a girl kinder runs to kisses an' such doggoned foolishness. But a man's different. He don't ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... shapeless shadow of a doubt. Too wise to learn, too wise to see the truth, E'en though it glow and sparkle like a gem On God's outstretched forefinger for all time. These have one argument, and only one, For good or evil, earth or jeweled heaven— The olden, owlish argument of doubt. Ah, he alone is wise who ever stands Armed cap-a-pie with God's eternal truth. Where Grex is Rex God help the hapless land. The yelping curs that bay the rising moon Are not ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... the most interesting persons I've ever met. I am so sorry I said you weren't, and I'm so nice and comfortable now. I hadn't thought of doing any further water stunts to-day." She struggled to a sitting posture and beamed with owlish significance upon her captors. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... glitter in the darkening valley. The change had already happened which is the test and definition of evening. I mean that while the sky seemed still as bright, the earth was growing blacker against it, especially at the edges, the hills and the pine-tops. This brought out yet more clearly the owlish secrecy of pine-woods; and my friend cast a regretful glance at them as he came out under the sky. Then he turned to the view in front; and, as it happened, one of the telegraph posts stood up in front of him in the last sunlight. It was no longer crossed and softened ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... sensation of skin in his clothes, the sign of a feverish night; and yawning he went into the air. Leftward the narrow village street led to the footway along which he could make for the mountain-wall. He cast one look at the head of the campanile, silly as an owlish roysterer's glazed stare at the young Aurora, and hurried his feet to check the yawns coming alarmingly fast, in the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and the big round spectacles which he always wore gave an owlish aspect to his face, the glasses being set in a heavy black frame which made his eyes look even deeper ...
— The Hilltop Boys - A Story of School Life • Cyril Burleigh
... the method used by Pigott. But it differs further from ordinary misrule in the vital matter of its object. The coercion was not imposed that the people might live quietly, but that the people might die quietly. And then we sit in an owlish innocence of our sin, and debate whether the Irish might conceivably succeed in saving Ireland. We, as a matter of fact, have not even failed to save Ireland. We have simply ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... his great owlish brows in a scowl, laid his hand on his revolver and whirled his horse in the ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden |
